From the sidelines
Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
The Pulaski Yankees is offering its own version of the hottest craze amongst youngsters with the Yankee blue spinner that will be available this season.
Fidget spinners have popped up everywhere. Initially the device was introduced to help children with autism and learning problems.
Now they have become the latest toy craze and have become banned from schools throughout the New River Valley as they have become a distraction.
Prices range from $4 to $50 on the Internet, but as their popularity has risen prices have fallen. They can be found at Walmart and many convenience stores.
Its name “fidget spinner” points to the stress-relieving benefit. A typical spinner consists of a bearing in the middle and are made of brass, stainless steel and plastic.
Experts are split on whether spinners do really help children and/or adults to concentrate better.
Catherine Hettinger has been called the inventor of the earliest version of the spinner dating to a patent in 1993. She let that patent lapse in 2005 and has no real claim to fame to the new version.
Earlier this year, Scott McCoskery confided in a radio interview that he invented a similar spinning device to deal with his own fidgeting. Thus, the new version was born, and an article in Forbes magazine called the fidget spinners as the must have office toy for 2017.
I have to admit I purchased almost a dozen of the spinners as an investment. But by the time, I started selling them the price of spinners dropped and the supply has popped up everywhere.
Maybe I should have invested in the stock market as the bottom wouldn’t have dropped as much as the price of spinners in the past two months.
If you can’t find a spinner and are being hounded by your child, then I still have a stockpile. They’re also great for adults.
The Yankees have not said what their price will be with the season begins next month. They are stamped with the Pulaski logo and could just be another collector’s item to add to your desk.
Happy spinning everyone.
In other matters, Major and Minor League baseball teams will host a “Play Ball weekend on June 3 with the goal is to host an event that highlights youth in your community.
The Pulaski Yankees will host a middle-school baseball tournament that weekend, giving these students the first chance to play on their newly installed Bermudagrass field before the professional players even try it out.
In other local sports news, Blacksburg tailback Cole Beck has received two more major scholarship offers to bring his total to 20 schools. Beck’s latest offers include Richmond, Pittsburgh, East Carolina and UVA.